Top 10 easy and stylish DIY decorations for Halloween

TT10October 2, 2012Comments Off

If you really want to add a personal touch to your Halloween décor, get creative with these easy and stylish do-it-yourself decorations. Celebrate one of world’s oldest holidays your own way and save money while providing fun for the whole family.
Some projects are quite simple, while others require time and effort, but the results are definitely worth it.

10. Bleeding Candles

Here’s a quick and easy craft you can do in minutes!
Fill a small box or cup with sand and stick white taper candles in the sand. Light a red candle and gently pour the red wax over the tapers so it drips down the tops and sides. It’s important to let the wax cool before moving the candles.
The ‘blood’ dripping candles are not only fully functional, but stylish as well. Their spook-tacular design can add a creepy glow to any Halloween setting.

9. Spooky Cobwebs

Spooky cobwebs are a crucial part of the Halloween decoration scheme. A floral arrangement or any other object or corner of your house becomes positively terrifying when covered in cobwebs. Of course, you could purchase fake stretchable cobweb material, but why spend money when you could do it yourself?
To make these professional looking webs, juts cut a section from damaged or inexpensive white pantyhose and pull at the threads of the hosiery until it resembles cobwebs.
Give your Halloween decorations a very cool and spooky effect with cobwebs made from hot glue! Take two pieces of plastic foam and some hot glue. Dip one side of the plastic foam into the glue, bring it together, let it cool down and start creating cobwebs! Watch Florists’ Review (FR) tutorial on YouTube to see how easy and fun it is to make this Halloween webs. The name of the video is FR Presents: Spider web floral arrangement for Halloween.

8. Flock of Bats

As da Vinci once said, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” To make this simple but elegant Halloween front door decor, just print out the following template and cut it out. Click here to download the image and follow the instructions. Use a photocopier to resize the template to your desired dimensions. My recommendation is to use thick paper (all-black cardstock or construction paper) for this project. Cut out at least 40 bats of different sizes. You could also place two or three Jack-o-lanterns to add more color and holiday spirit to the setting.

7. Creepy Crawlers

Mini pumpkins are such a great way to get creative. Creepy crawlers are super easy to put together. Start by carving the top of the mini pumpkin off. Scoop out the seeds and flesh and make sure the candle fits inside. You will also need three, four black pipe cleaners. Fold the pipe cleaners into three or two even segments (depending on the size of the mini pumpkin) and cut at your fold. The goal is to have eight spider legs.
Make four holes on each side of the pumpkin and attach the legs. Bend all eight pipe cleaners so they resemble the legs of a real spider and…voilà! You’ve got a creepy crawler.

6. Mummy Pumpkin

Here’s what you’ll need to create this little guy: a pumpkin, fabric stiffener or heavy spray starch, googly eyes, cheesecloth and hot/tacky glue. Now, cut the cheesecloth into stripes, spray the strips and place them on the pumpkin. It’s really important to attach the fabric while it’s wet. Glue the eyes and add a few more strips of cheesecloth to partially cover the eyes. Keep it simple or add your own decorative touches.

5. Staircase Silhouette

Shadows add a sense of mystery and quite a spooky effect to your Halloween setting. Martha Steward’s „Staircase Silhouette” is very simple and inexpensive to craft.
To make this large shadowy figure, print out the following staircase template and cut out all 20 sections. „Following the numbered diagram, tape together the sections for each stair (numbered 1 through 9) at the dotted lines. Trace onto pieced-together black construction paper, and cut out. Number the back of each stair section according to the diagram; attach each section to the appropriate stair riser with double-sided tape.”(MarthaStewart.com)

4. Hanging Vellum Lanterns

Hanging Vellum Lanterns is another interesting project I found on MarthaStewart.com. When the night slowly settles in, set a spooky scene with these awesome lanterns.
Pick your favorite template (owl, cat or witch), then print and cut it out. Trace the selected template four times, side by side, on heavy black paper (24″ by 36 ″), crease where the sides meet and cut out as shown in the following image.

Print four copies of your favorite lantern design onto translucent paper (vellum). Remember to cut each vellum piece slightly larger than the window frame. Tape the pieces into frame, form the lamp shape and tape also the edges of the lantern.
“Cut a 26-inch length of wire. In the middle, twist a loop. Poke the wire ends through paper to make 2 holes at edge of lantern. Use pliers to roll ends of wire to secure. Use monofilament to hang 2 battery-operated votive candles, taped end to end, inside the lantern. Use twine and removable adhesive hangers to suspend the lanterns.” (MarthaStewart.com)

3. Floating Ghost

To begin with, cover your working area with an old towel or a newspaper. Here’s what you need to create the “ghost support”: a plastic bottle of one liter, wire and a Styrofoam ball or something similar, like a crumpled aluminum-foil ball.
Twist the wire around the bottleneck; bend both sides of the wire until they resemble arms and shove the foam ball on top of the bottle. If the ball you’re using is colored, make sure to cover it with plastic wrap.
Place a large piece of cheesecloth over the ghost form, spray it with starch and let it dry. If needed, use a hair dryer to speed up the process. Once dried, carefully remove it from the support and attach a pair of eyes. You can either buy the eyes or make them out of white & black paper.

2. Spooky Wreath

The total cost of this project is around $25, depending on where you get your supplies, but the good part is that you can use the spooky wreath year after year.
Start by gluing two or three 1″ Styrofoam sheets together. Regular white glue is ok. Three sheets have been used for the wreath you see in the above picture. It’s quite thick. Let them dry overnight.
Draw two circles of different sizes to obtain a wreath-like template and cut it out. An electric knife will do the job, but be forewarned… flying little balls of Styrofoam will invade your working area and cleaning won’t be very pleasant.
Wrap seven or eight black feather boas around the wreath. You can easily secure them with U-shaped clips made of 2″ long wire pieces. Cut the extra feathers from the middle of the wreath to have a bigger opening. Add a couple of sparkly skulls and some strips of different sizes of black gauze and that’s it! Don’t worry if you won’t find exactly the same decorations at the Dollar store, important is to personalize with things you like. Don’t forget to add mini-lights to emphasize it at night.

1. Spider Web Balloons

Number one goes to one of the coolest Halloween decorations I’ve seen. These are the materials you’ll need for the project: HI Float, one 11″ clear latex balloon and one or two small rubber spiders. Start by injecting HI Float in the balloon. It will form a ‘skin’ on the inside of the balloon, so rub it around to coat the inside. Insert the spiders, partially inflate the balloon, seal it and make sure to let it dry overnight. The next step is to deflate the balloon, stretch it to separate the dry ‘skin’ and slowly re-inflate the balloon with air or Helium. This is how you form a spider web inside a balloon.